Who has a smartphone? Raise the hand! Now tell me how many of you regularly check Instangram, Facebook, Pinterest and Foursquare from smartphone. I won’t make a secret of this – the first thing I installed on my new smartphone was Instagram. Statistics show that in 2012 91% of mobile phones were used by their owners to access social networks. If you are a businessman such fact can’t be ignored. The most rational thing to do is to create for mobile audience the most comfortable conditions so they could become not only our subscribers, followers, but active clients and loyal customers as well. How to go about this? Read on to find out.
For a start let’s define three key moments which differ desktop users from mobile:
1. At the fingertips
Regardless of how we prefer to perceive the information, we all like to examine, touch the product before buying it. It’s not so easy to do online, however with mobile device it is much better experience since you don’t have obstacles like static massive desktop computer with mouse and so on. We tap fingers to navigate on smartphones which creates illusion of direct contact with the image displayed on screen.
2. Love from the first sight
No matter how we like reading, on mobile device displays it’s not convenient to do. Another thing is view images. Why do you think Pinterest has become so successful? In the USA it generates more sales than Facebook! Why is that? Because Pinterest has been created for mobile users first of all – large images and minimum of text.
3. Always on hand
Whenever we go – smartphone is always with us. As for me, I won’t go to the café which doesn’t have free Wi-Fi – I think it is disrespectful towards customers J. We check in everywhere , instragram, read Facebook newsfeed and tweet. With mobile it just so convenient!
Based on important factors about mobile users, I suggest you to review and update your SMM strategy. Here are 7 tips on how you can improve your interaction with mobile audience.
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1. Posts with images
If you still don’t do this and limit your posts in the social media to standard links only, with accent on text without any eye-catching images, you should start doing this! Images will improve post efficiency not only for the mobile but for other devices as well. It has been proved that posts with photos receive more likes and clicks in the social networks.
2. Mobile-adapted website
Most probably that as a result of your SMM activity user will come to your website – it could be blog article, season deal or information about the product. It is very important that the page which mobile user lands on is adapted for his device and is displayed correctly. Ideally you should make your website mobile-adapted if you want to tackle mobile website marketing.
3. More activity on Instagram
The future is in visual marketing. What does it mean? It means that it is a high time to create your company account in Instagram and include it in your social media marketing solutions. What to post? In fact there are plenty of options. For example you can photo and instagram:
- coworkers;
- goods;
- happy clients;
- production process;
- internal processes;
- run photo-contests;
- tell the stories via series of images;
- make short video (now Instagram allows even this!).
Among Instagram advantages are small budgets, lots of space for creativity, high interaction with your audience. In 2012 many companies show that Instagram should be used in marketing. For instance, a famous brands Victoria’s Secret, which mainly publishes its “angels”. As for today, its account on Instagram has about 2 million subscribers. Main character of cofferhouse chain Starbucks publications is what we all love it for – coffee. Who would have thought that its photos will attract over 1,2 million subscribers
4. Get acquainted with Pinterest
Let’s have a look at the figures: 69% of online buyers who found the product they need on Pinterest have made the purchase or are planning to do so. For comparison – the similar index for Facebook equals 40%. Moreover 43% of Pinterest users are interested in brands and retailers, when in Facebook this rate is only 24%. Impressive, isn’t it?
Among brands successfully using Pinterest are many – from Etsy (world’s biggest handmade online retailer) to Sony (which announced that Pinterest drives to its website by 3,5 times more traffic than Twitter.
Pinterest gives plenty of room for variety of content strategy, for example you can:
- run contests;
- publish you goods pictures;
- upload interesting photos from your company life;
- publish clients’ photos;
- announce news;
- hold workshops and give tips;
- many more.
5. Stimulate checkins
Foursquare is popular among mobile users. How to use this social network in SMM strategy? Lots of options – from simple incentives for checkin to interesting quests and contests.
Engage the audience, create bonus system with points for each checkin and let your users take advantage of such bonuses which are not available to regular clients. This will create a feel of some special closed society.
6. Run different activities
When prepare different types of contests, take into account certain limitations which mobile users may encounter. For example, it is quite troublesome on mobile to write text for 2 thousand symbols or upload large photo.
7. Use video
Mobile users like to watch videos. This is the reason why Instagram made it possible to upload short videos – these guys know what they are doing J
This all means that it is time to think about video format which would be interesting for your audience when marketing using social media. Take a note that people still don’t like advertisement, so a bare promotional video will not work. However, useful, educational or entertaining video may bring you lots of results – from popularity growth, wider brand recognition, better audience loyalty to desired sales growth.
For example, Advance Auto Parts posted a series of video lessons which instead of traditional selling model exploitation teach the clients different aspects of car technical maintenance. 
Towards the mobile future!
Impressive statistics figures show that companies cannot ignore mobile users when marketing on social media. Individual approach to mobile web marketing is very vital these days – it also requires strategy, ideas and well-thought steps – just like in any marketing activity. Your communication with mobile users can be very effective if everything is done correctly. Remember, that not those with lots of knowledge are successful, but those who apply this knowledge. Act on!
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